It's Metro Transit's application for a safety award for their Rail Compliance Testing Procedures. It's not a full SOP, but it gives you an idea of how complex operating the LRT system is as well as what actions are taken in certain emergencies. It's a fun read if you're a bit nerdy about LRT. It also seemed kind of relevant due to all the accidents this last week.

Also, fun fact, MT didn't have any formal procedures for testing compliance with rail rules until 2011. Before that, supervisors apparently just made up tests whenever they felt like it (i.e. "Did that operator open the doors on the correct side? Yes! Okay, did that operator honk the horn at the right time? No? Okay, I'll shoot my boss an email and he can take care of it if he wants to."). It took some joint training with BNSF for MT to realize that maybe they should create something a bit more formal than that.

The design of that intersection is horrifically bad for pedestrians. It doesn't take much imagination to see how a poorly plowed section could be impassable to someone in a wheelchair. We really need an advocacy group with some good lawyers to sue the hell out of the city, county, state and met council over this. They can't even use the bullshit grandfathered excuse because this was built after the ADA.

What's strange about this is the Strib article mentions he wasn't alone. If he got stuck on the rails, why wouldn't someone help him? Perhaps he started crossing before the crossing signal activated but once in the intersection the gates started coming down and others were too afraid to go back in and get him?

A photo I took yesterday of track work occurring in the MSP airport tunnels, where they were single-tracking. The tracks were shifted out of the way to replace the supports underneath. They're blocks with what look like rubberized gaskets/boots surrounding them:

mulad wrote:A photo I took yesterday of track work occurring in the MSP airport tunnels, where they were single-tracking. The tracks were shifted out of the way to replace the supports underneath. They're blocks with what look like rubberized gaskets/boots surrounding them: